What with the South American deposits, Lithium isn’t worth fighting a war over.
Now Bastnäsite, that would be something!
Yeah, you know who has mineral wealth? The Congo. Oh, Sudan has oil. Zimbabwe has minerals.
So no, I doubt it, it’s just a reason for more exploitation, not less.
Yup. Abundant natural resources absent a strong and honest central government are a curse, not a blessing. When wealth can be dug out of the ground, all a corrupt government needs to worry about if it wants to line its pockets is controlling the mines. No need for that tedious economic development or democratization work.
I’ve merged Kimstu’s thread (which started in GD) with Chefguy’s (which was moved here from IMHO). I’ve edited the thread title so the subject is clearer.
2 to 1 the tribesmen launch cross-border slave raids, to get people to work the mines.
I’m going to be very blunt and brief, since I’m working on a minerals project in Afghanistan right now (not right this second, but I’m on retainer) and can’t comment much.
-
There is HUGE, repeat HUGE uncertainty about the level of economically recoverable mineral and energy resources available in Afghanistan. Seeing coal deposits with +1000%/-90% uncertainty levels are not uncommon.
-
This is due in partto enormous levels of corruption and even outright paranoid lying by some officials, researchers, and scientists. Some of it is a result of strangeness that happened during the Soviet occupation. And some of it is just due to insufficient surveys and knowledge about the area, especially in the Northeast.
As a result, I have almost no confidence in any claim of $1trillion in mineral resources.
Now come on, you can’t just leave that lying there like that! Do tell us more. 
I understand that the average wage for a coal miner in West Virginia is somewhere in the neighborhood of $70,000. These jobs are in areas where the median income is probably closer to $25,000.
Obviously, comparing Afghanistan to West Virginia isn’t going to work, and these people are being paid well because it is a dangerous job. But you asked to be enlightened, so there ya go. 
Back to the OP, it seems to be clearer and clearer that this is old news, but that transporting ore and the whole geopolitical situation draw doubts on how this can all be exploited. Link.
Not if you’re on opium…
Well, all we need is some kind of ‘pipeline’ or delivery system, and voila! Outsiders get the commodities they need, and the locals reap the profits.
What could possibly go wrong?
According to a new Pentagon study, it appears Afghanistan has a potential $1 trillion in mineral wealth, including iron, copper, cobalt, lithium and gold. That’s a big deal, considering Afghanistan’s GDP is only $13 billion. But can this wealth be used to modernize the country, or will it just give the opium warlords another thing to fight over? Imagine the Gold Rush in America’s Old West with automatic weapons. :eek:
The latter.
It doesn’t appear that Afghanistan is ready to be a modern nation, so I predict that if extracted, the mineral wealth will be treated like any other resource or product currently from the country. Corruption, chronyism, tribal warfare, the Taliban, etc.
It will only inflame the violence, assuming any mining company will do business there.
Its no surprise that there is vast mineral wealth in Afghanistan. Its mountainous, inaccessible and blessed of a foul climate. Whatever mineral wealth is in Afghanistan has been there for a long time, and will remain there for a long time, because Afghanistan is mountainous, inaccessible, and blessed of a foul climate.
It never ceases to amaze me how supposedly smart peoiple can be hioodwinked by the usual managed news we get in the US:
The Soviets planned similar non-energy minerals mining in 1985:
Here’s a 2007 U.S. Geological Survey report on Afghan mineral wealth, from the country’s Ministry of Mines.
I am shocked, shocked that gold mines are re-discovered by the New York Times just as Hamid Karzai is doubting the resolve of NATO to prop up his government–err, root out the evil-terrorist Taliban–and western interest in Afghanistan is starting to flag.
Yeah, this isn’t news, it’s very old information. Does anyone really think that mineral companies are currently exploring Afghanistan and just happened upon these wonderful discoveries?
This ‘news’ is meant to justify long term involvement there. For the good of the Afghan people, you know, to help them develope their resources and create a stable economy.
It’s all bullshit. But it will provide the current US administration, the next administration, and the one after that with justification to stay there for the foreseeable future.
It is after all an impartial report from the Pentagon, so there really can’t be a hidden agenda.
I think this quote from the link in the OP says it best.
Sounds like the training of the Afghan Army isn’t on schedule.
Plus, what does the US military do without a major deployment like Afghanistan . . . . it can’t shrink. Obviously.
If you’ve got a country with a strong democratic government and honest uncorrupt institutions that suddenly comes into massive mineral wealth, like Norway, then it’s a huge benefit. Note that Norway, being one of the least corrupt countries on earth, nationalised the oil and all the profits go into a giant sovereign wealth fund to benefit the Norwegian people, and compare that to Britain handing its North Sea oil over to BP.
But then you’ve got incredibly corrupt countries with no strong government and warring ethnic factions, people who find something to fight over even when the country is desperately poor. And some countries , like Afghanistan, are historically the venues for proxy wars held by their more powerful neighbours too and have a history of their neighbours interfering in the governance of the country, backing their own preferred factions etc. Like Iraq or Lebanon. There are zero examples of a country like this whose wealth stems from one natural resource, like oil or what have you, becoming more democratic, prosperous, or free. Mostly they turn into police states, like Iraq will. fghanistan is too poor and chaotic currently with too many seriously warring factions for that to happen. There’ll be a bunch of mini police statelets who war with each other mainly and cooperate with each other mainly to beat their enemies or enforce a fragile peace in some areas so they can get some extraction done. And a joke national government.